For a Chance
by Anonymous033
Summary: "She thought that in another world, a world where Fate had a softer hand, he might even have been a heroic man—so came proof in the form of the little boy he had once risked his life for by scooping out of the way of an oncoming vehicle." AU where Ziva's a detective and Tony's a petty criminal; prompted by an asker on Tumblr. Multi-chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _NCIS._

**Spoilers: **Eh ... er, I kept some canon details and ditched some, but there are no major spoilers.

**Notes: **This was inspired by an anonymous asker on Tumblr, who requested I write a fic where Tony was a criminal and Ziva, a detective. At first, I didn't think I could do it, but the idea interested me, and some careful thinking brought about this fic :P I don't think this fic warrants any warnings, but it does warrant some explanations, and they are the following:

1) Tony is younger than Ziva here. A large part of the canon Tiva dynamic is influenced by the fact that he is _older _than her, and so this fact deserves to be highlighted.

2) Tony is _younger,_ in general. By twenty years, in fact! This brings to light a very different aspect of his personality, one not as jaded as the cop who's worked many cases and the man left at the altar and the man with an undercover-stint-gone-wrong, so Tony is a lot more naïve here than he is on the show. I also dated his birth and the important events in his life as 10 years later than they actually are, because ... well, _I'm _not that old and I have no idea what life was like back then.

3) Very naturally, Ziva's past is different, and that will probably be addressed later in the fic.

4) In the course of writing this fic, I addressed some aspects of the legal system as well as lower-class life in cities. Consider this a disclaimer: I am neither a police officer, nor a lawyer, nor a social worker. I make no pretence to be. While, to the best of my abilities, I researched what I should have, I did take some poetic license in writing this fic. Please forgive me if I have made any transgressions. :)

Enjoy!

**-_Soph_**

* * *

**Chapter One**

"Anthony Desiderio DiNozzo, Junior."

The case file went sailing across the metal desk.

"Born in 1981 on Long Island to Anthony Desiderio DiNozzo—Senior, I presume—and Elisabeth Marie Paddington. Your mother died in 1989; you attended various boarding schools and went to Ohio State University in 1999. I'll be honest: That is all we have on you. You don't seem like a bad man. Perhaps a little misguided, but not _bad._"

The man at the table was silent. Detective Ziva David settled herself calmly into the seat opposite him to study the expression on his face—resigned and, if she was not mistaken, a little bit frightened. That was not uncommon. She had learnt, in the two years she had been an investigator in the Narcotics and Special Investigations unit at the Metropolitan Police Department, that individuals charged with the misdemeanour of drug possession were often not as dangerous as other criminals. They weren't close to being the most harmless members of a society, of course, but they weren't close to being the most harmful either. The brunet sitting before her seemed hardly more than a boy. According to his date of birth, he was already twenty-three years old, but all his greenish-coloured eyes reflected was an overwhelming sense of bewilderment, as if he had lost his way on the journey to adulthood and needed a little help.

"We don't want you, you know," she said quietly. "We want the dealer you were talking to. If you have any information you can give us about him, we might give you a lighter sentence."

The man breathed out deeply, but gave no indication of acknowledgement apart from that.

"What are you protecting him for?" she prodded. "He bailed on you when he saw the police. Took off without waiting to see if you would run for safety, too."

"That's the nature of the business, isn't it?" Anthony murmured. His voice sounded cracked, as if from disuse.

Ziva spoke to the officer standing guard by the door of the interrogation room. "Could you get him a drink of water, please?" The officer nodded and left the room.

"Are you the good cop here?" Anthony asked, seemingly with curiosity.

She shrugged and answered honestly. "I am both the good cop and the bad cop, depending on who's taking me on."

"Hmm." Anthony seemed to ponder that as he lapsed back into silence.

"Surely you would not want me to turn into the bad cop."

"It doesn't make a difference," he whispered, making Ziva frown at that statement. The officer who had been standing guard returned with a cup of water; Ziva left him in the room to babysit Anthony who, despite eyeing the water somewhat desperately, had not lifted the cup at all.

There was a mystery to be cracked here, Ziva decided. One thing was for sure: Anthony DiNozzo wasn't quite like anyone she had ever seen.

xoxo

"We have not poisoned the water, you know."

"I know."

"You are not thirsty?"

"I am."

"Then why is it that you do not want the water?"

"I … do."

"Alright."

"…"

"Drink it, then. There's no point in being dehydrated."

He did.

xoxo

Anthony DiNozzo was innocent at heart.

That was what Ziva came to conclude. They had picked him up for possession of marijuana, but judging by his behaviour, he was not a streetwise user well-versed in evading the police and committing bigger crimes. He had—through his own fault—probably just been in the wrong place at the wrong time; there wouldn't be much to be gained about the criminal world from him. Still, Ziva thought, she had to try—she hadn't gotten by as a detective through assumptions about either the presence or the absence of evidence concerning a case. However innocuous Anthony seemed, he might still know something that would lead indirectly to the drug dealer they were seeking.

Sighing, she opened the door to the interrogation room, where Anthony was still sitting with his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the now-empty paper cup.

"Do you want more water?" she offered, and he shook his head.

"'S 'kay."

"Let's get down to business, then." She sat down on the empty metal chair. "The officers arrested you for drug possession, yes?"

"Yeah."

"You were given your Miranda Warning before this interrogation."

"Yeah."

"You were informed of your right to remain silent and your right to an attorney, but you waived those rights."

"Yeah."

"Do you want to exercise those rights now?"

"No."

"You do realize this means I can question you without a lawyer present for you?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then." She pursed her lips. "This morning—the morning of March 5th—at 7.52AM, Officers Lee and Dorneget arrested you in Georgetown for the possession of 3.5 grams of marijuana. Prior to the time of arrest, you were seen to be communicating with Drew Black, otherwise known as the Mask. He fled the scene when the officers showed up. You didn't. You did not resist arrest and, upon being read your rights, waived them. You were later given your rights again, prior to the first time I spoke with you, and waived them once more. This effectively means that you have given me permission to speak with you without legal counsel here to defend you. Is all of this true?"

"Why do you keep asking this?" Anthony rasped in exasperation.

"Just double-checking, Mr DiNozzo. People usually want a lawyer when they can get one."

"I don't _want_ one."

Ziva blinked, momentarily taken aback by his vehemence. "Alright. Let us proceed, then. At the time of the arrest, you were purchasing marijuana from Mr Black, correct?"

"Yeah."

"How do you get in touch with him?"

"Text," Anthony mumbled, lowering his eyes. Shame coloured his features.

"And what do you text when you want to purchase from him?"

"I just ask him if he's good." He shrugged. "A friend taught me that."

"And this friend is…?"

For the first time, Anthony's reply was vague. "This is DC. Plenty of people smoke weed. It doesn't need to be a specific friend who taught me that."

Ziva almost planted her face into her hands. Really, Anthony was either a painfully naïve young man or an extremely good actor.

"What do you know about Mr Black?" she asked.

"I don't know anything. I'd only bought twice from him, I swear."

"Both times by texting him beforehand?"

"Yeah."

"Did you meet up in the same place both times?"

"Yup."

"Did you see where he came from before he met up with you, or where he headed after he had given you the drugs?"

Anthony hesitated. "He was late both times, but he just seemed to _appear, _and I—I honestly don't know. The first time, I was running late for work, so I didn't stick around to see where he went. The second time—well, you know what happened."

"Clearly," she said dryly. "Mr DiNozzo, you know anything you can give us that would help us could mean a reduced sentence."

"I know, but I really don't have any information to give you!"

"You could tell us who gave you his number."

It was a half-hearted attempt, at best: Sure enough, Anthony clammed up.

She tried again. "Mr Black has done some very bad things—"

"I figured," Anthony replied sourly. "But the guy who gave me his number is just an old college-mate."

"_What is this college-mate's name?_" she asked sternly.

He opened and shut his mouth. Paused. "I plead the Fifth."

She sat back, rubbing her forehead with the fingertips of her right hand. "Fine. If you have nothing more to tell us, we will have the charges filed, and an arraignment will be arranged for you."

Anthony seemed to perk up at that. "What happens if I plead 'guilty'?"

"Uh…" Ziva stuttered. "You will be given a date for sentencing, or perhaps a sentence immediately."

"So, I'll go to jail?"

"Not necessarily," she assured him. "You could be put on probation."

He sank back into his chair, his posture deflated. "So, I won't go to jail?" he murmured.

"Mr DiNozzo, you _want _to go to _jail?_" she asked with disbelief.

He quietened.

"Prison is not a joke, you know," she snapped. She didn't know why she was getting upset, but his strange keenness to be incarcerated did not sit right with her. "You will face unimaginable horrors there."

Anthony did not respond.

Ziva lingered for a while longer, but he had gone back into his shell, it appeared, and would not be coming out again anytime soon. Tiredly, she pushed herself back from the table; if he didn't want to help himself, she wouldn't be able to help him. That was just how it worked.

She did not see him bury his head into his palms when she left.

And she had long gone by the time the sobbing of a defeated man could be heard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own it. Sigh...

**Notes:**

1) In the interests of factual accuracy, minor edits were made to Chapter 1. Nothing major was changed; Chapter 1 does not have to be reread in order for this chapter to be understood. Thank you to Acrwdof1 for the guidance!

2) I have discovered even _describing _an arraignment to be hard, lol. Acrwdof1 tried to help me with this, too, but because this chapter was written long before I published Chapter 1 and is necessary to move the story along, it still might not be the most accurate.

3) During the course of this story, Ziva ... flirts with ethical boundaries a lot. At least, I think she does: If she were a psychologist, that would be a case :P but since I only know psychologists' ethics and I can't find any police department ethical codes telling me what guidelines dictate interactions between police officers and people who have been apprehended by police officers before, I'm only _assuming _that she's flirting with ethical boundaries. At any rate, the whole concept of the story might already have made that clear; I'm just making it doubly-clear. If you're looking for a moral story, it's not this!

I hope you enjoy, regardless!

**-_Sophie_**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Well, this is it."

Anthony was staring out of the car window at the sand-coloured walls of the district courthouse.

"This is where you will meet a magistrate judge, in a few hours," Ziva told him. Seeing as his case was minimally related to the person she was investigating, she really had no reason to be there, but she had decided to escort him as far as the front steps of the courthouse. It was clear that he was a lonely man. No one had come for him in the time that he had been under their custody, and he had asked for no one to come. It wasn't uncommon for drug addicts to suffer severe losses, from work to personal, but Anthony seemed far from one of those whose life had been destroyed by drugs—apart from an overwhelming sense of indifference towards himself and his surroundings, he had not exhibited any behaviour warranting concern. He simply seemed … to be alone, as if without reason.

It made Ziva's heart ache.

"The magistrate judge will read you the charges and ask you to enter a plea," she continued quietly. "That's 'guilty,' 'not guilty,' or 'nolo contendere'—'no contest.' Do not worry, we have a lawyer waiting in there to guide you through the whole process."

His brow furrowed. "I told you, I don't want—"

"—Legal advice," she finished. "I know. But since your sentencing _might _involve incarceration, it is still best if you talk to the lawyer. He will be able to help you analyse your options and decide what is best for yourself."

He turned to her. "What's prison really like?"

She grimaced. "Right now? The DC jail is no place to be in. They are overcrowded."

"Overcrowded how?"

"Overcrowded like there are not enough staff and not enough room. You may not get time to go out for some fresh air. You may not have sheets for your bed—"

"But do they get to eat?"

"Yes, of course," she answered, surprised.

"Okay." Anthony stretched his fingers across his lap.

"But it is hardly delicious," she pointed out. "And certainly not very nutritional."

"I gave up on 'delicious and nutritional' a long time ago."

"What do you mean?"

"You think every kid grows up waiting for the day they get to go to prison, Detective David?" He looked up and stared hard at her. "My mother died when I was eight. My father shipped me off to a boarding school when I was ten but went bankrupt when I was twelve. I was kicked back into the public school system, and _every single day _I waited for my dad to acknowledge it _wasn't my fault_. He never did. He was just ashamed of me. Well, I'd show him. I got a sports scholarship to OSU, but what do you know? I blew out my knee playing basketball just at the start of my senior year.

"I have nothing left. My dad doesn't want me. I don't want a degree that would just be the reminder of everything I couldn't be. I used up all my savings moving here, getting a new start, but I've been stuck in a minimum wage job for the past two years and when winter comes, _I can't afford heating. _So, when you say people get fed in prison, prison sounds better because let's face it: I struggle enough to stay fed in the outside world, as it is."

Ziva swallowed the lump in her throat. "I'm very sorry, Mr DiNozzo." It sounded woefully inadequate and, judging by his huff, Anthony thought so too.

"I just wanted to escape for once," he murmured hoarsely, shaking his head. "And it's just my luck to bump into you guys."

(She regretted it.)

"What's done is done, right?" he asked. "It's an open-and-shut case: Two police officers as witness, evidence in my pocket as I was brought in. I go in there and plead guilty, and I won't have to await trial. I won't have an anvil hanging over my head waiting for a result that will inevitably be 'guilty,' anyway—"

"Do you know what the sentence for a first-time misdemeanour like yours would be, Mr DiNozzo?"

"No, but—"

"Six months," she interrupted. "A hundred and eighty days is the _maximum, _and considering you were caught possessing marijuana, it is likely not to even be that much. You will spend a few months in a jail not known for good facilities only to come out and find yourself in the same spot that you were in before all of this. Is that really worth it?"

"Is anything really worth the effort I put into it?" he shot back.

She closed her eyes. She really wished things didn't have to be like this. "Take the probation, if you are offered it," she said, opening her eyes again. "I am no lawyer. I cannot tell you with certainty how things will work out. But I do know that jail is not the place for someone like you."

"You don't know me."

"All the more reason to believe that my faith in you is genuine."

He looked away at that.

"I'll think about it," he finally said. He laid a hand on the door handle, a signal that he wanted to leave; reluctantly, she gave the order for the policewoman in the front seat to escort him out. He gave her a parting nod, his voice sincere when he said, "Thanks, Detective David."

She couldn't help but to wonder, as he stepped out of the car, how the young man's life would turn out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The next few days flew by quickly.

In the face of bigger criminals and drug dealers, Ziva almost forgot about the young man who had been apprehended for happening to be in the midst of the investigation she was conducting. Her busy life meant she had no time for contemplation, though, and while Anthony's fate would certainly be food for thought under different circumstances, she spared no effort to think about his future—until he showed up one morning on the front steps of the police station.

"You are very brave, to show up here of your own willingness," she teased good-humouredly when she went to meet him, and shyness flashed momentarily across his face.

"Figured I'd let you know I took probation."

She took in his shrug; the affected casualness of his stance. He was nervous, but obviously determined to try not to show it. Reaching out a hand, she touched his arm gently and fleetingly. "Relax," she said. "If you became any tenser, I think you would have a heart attack right here on these steps."

He looked sheepish at that. "I was trying not to show that I was tense."

"Well, I am a detective for a reason," she answered, tongue-in-cheek. "How are things?"

"I got probation," he said again. "And I have a probation officer who wants me to submit to random drug tests and refrain from drinking or possessing firearms, but is pretty lenient apart from that."

"There are no rehab requirements?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Since it was my first offence, and I wasn't found to need counselling…" He stared at her all of a sudden, the colour of his eyes striking in their intensity; in the earnestness with which he looked at her. "I'm really not addicted, y'know."

"I figured."

"I just needed you to know that. For—for sure." His eyes darted away, the bravado seeping out of him. He licked his lips before adding, "If you believe me."

"Of course I believe you." He still wasn't looking at her, so she prodded, "Is there a reason I shouldn't?"

He lifted a shoulder and dropped it.

"Anthony," she murmured quietly, and she knew she had taken him aback when he did a double take.

"'_To_ny,'" he insisted before she could say anything else.

"Tony," she amended and continued her point, "one might argue that you could be lying to me, but I don't believe you are. I have seen a lot of bad people in this world. You do not seem like one of them. I think you are someone who lost his way and fell through the cracks of the society as time moved on."

He blanched. "You might be more right than you thought."

"Yes," she conceded, "but you have a second chance now, even if it came about unconventionally—"

"I don't have a job anymore, Detective David," he interrupted. "They fired me when I didn't show up for work those few days last week, and I don't know where I'm gonna find a new job with the track record I have. I've been living off leftovers so far, but rent is due in two weeks, and I don't know how I'm going to pay it. It's more like I've been given a chance to restart the whole cycle."

She pursed her lips against the weary sigh that wanted to escape her. _How was it, _she wondered, _that things could just be so _hard _for some people?_

"Perhaps," she suggested soberly, tentatively, "your probation officer could help you find a job?"

He shrugged once again. "It's very minimally supervised probation. I don't know if he'll help, and even if he does—what do I do in the meantime?"

She stood unmoving to regard him. It appeared as if he was actually seeking her advice, and that perplexed her; rarely had anyone come to her for anything that was not job-related, and she was at a loss to know what he could want from her. A job at the police station was out of the question, at least for now, and offering him a place to stay would certainly not be a good idea.

_First things first,_ she decided. If she couldn't teach a man to fish, she could at least give him a fish (or however that saying went).

"Come on," she said, beckoning him to follow her down the steps. "I will buy you lunch."

"What?" he questioned in confusion. "Detective—"

"'Ziva.'"

"Detective Ziva—"

"Just 'Ziva,'" she said in amusement, turning around to face him.

He screeched to a halt, narrowly avoiding a collision with her. His face turned red as he took a step backwards, stuttering, "This isn't right." She raised her eyebrows at him, and he stammered, "I—I mean, thank you for your offer, Miss Ziva, but you're a _cop. _And with all due respect, cops don't—they shouldn't—they mustn't be caught interacting with people like me."

"Oh?" she asked. "And what did you do, pray tell, that was so bad?"

"What _didn't _I do?" he challenged.

And even though she knew it was rhetorical, she answered, "You didn't embezzle. You're not in the weapons trade. You don't run a human trafficking ring. And this is just off the top of my head. There are a thousand things you could have done, Mr DiNozzo—"

"'_Tony.'_"

"—_Tony, _that are worse than what you got arrested for." She stepped closer. "I took an oath to protect the community I serve in. Do you know what this means? If I buy you lunch, you'll have one less meal to worry about, and if you have one less meal to worry about, then you have more time to look for a job instead. I am not asking you out on a date." (He blushed.) "I am merely saying that I can help you, and I am going to. When was the last time you ate?"

He shifted on his feet. "Um, yesterday evening?" he suggested cautiously.

She highly doubted, given his reticence, the truthfulness of his answer. "Then what is there to consider?" she pressed.

"But … Ziva, I can't just spend your money like you didn't earn it. I know the value of a dollar. I can't expect you to waste it on someone like me—"

"I am not _wasting _it," she said indignantly.

"No, but—"

"Are you not a living person, Tony?" she interrupted. "What gives you the idea that your life is more dispensable than the others'? Do you not think that if you could be fed, you deserve to be?"

"But—"

"No 'buts.'"

She froze at the shininess that glimmered in his eyes for the split-second before he blinked it away. She breathed out deeply, softening.

Nodding, giving him permission to speak his thoughts, she said, "Go ahead."

His reply was halting. "There are just … people who deserve this more than me."

"Like who?"

And there was the casual shrug. "People who have done more."

"Or people who could come to do more," she said, her voice low. "Like you."

His startled eyes met her face.

"You are a bright man," she continued. "And an honest one. A decent one. I see no reason not to give you the little help you need."

He looked away again, scuffing a shoe against the sidewalk. "What if I end up disappointing you?"

"Again, I am a police officer," she answered with a wry smile. "I am not in this for personal reasons. There is no way to disappoint me."

"Oh."

"Just for the record, though, I do not think you will disappoint me."

He smiled shyly. That, in turn, drew a chuckle from her.

"Come on," she repeated, tugging on his arm. "You can tell me over lunch what kind of jobs you're looking for."

He ended up accompanying her.

xoxo

"My suggestion is transitional housing," she told him as they walked back towards the police station.

Instead of sitting down in a comfortable café for lunch, he had opted to grab sandwiches from a deli instead, and had fidgeted the entire time he was there. It appeared he really wasn't comfortable with even something as simple as being treated to lunch; just from that, Ziva guessed that housing assistance would be a hard sell.

Sure enough, he stopped in the middle of taking another bite. "Transitional housing?" he echoed, looking as if he had lost his appetite.

She nodded. "It is just temporary, as the name would tell you. I think it would be beneficial in helping you get back on your feet. A number of them offer services like job training, and certainly most, if not all, of them are low-cost housing."

"But … halfway houses."

"Yes."

"But that says I can't afford my own place. Are you saying I can't afford my own place?"

"You cannot," she pointed out bluntly.

He stood still, suddenly looking so very small and vulnerable, as if she had attacked him. And in a way, she supposed, she had; even if Tony was barely keeping himself afloat, it was clear that he had taken pride in being able to fend for himself ever since he had been left to his own devices. Then again, perhaps that had been his downfall—he had no social support system, either through his own design or others' indifference to him—and it would, in all likelihood, continue to be his downfall until he accepted that things could not simply stay as they were or progress to become _worse _than they already were.

"It is a stepping stone," she told him carefully. "If you could save on rent while working a job, you could eventually save enough to get your own apartment, or at least rent a better one. You could save enough for other things you wanted. Job training means that you could get a better job, too, and that translates to a higher quality of life. Do you not want that?"

He looked away from her, visibly blinking back tears. "'Course I do."

"Then, think about it." She gave him a small smile. "You do not have to do it if you don't want to—it is just a suggestion. But I want you to know that there are options."

"Just…" He paused. "Just feels like a step back, y'know? I _had _my own place, and now I'm about to … not."

"It is not a step back," she chided him gently. "Think of it as a step towards a better place. You're doing this so that you won't still be here five years down the line, Tony."

"Can't I just—I don't know—find a new job," he said desperately, "and keep my old place?"

"Of course you can. But you have to think about what it means in terms of cost."

His shoulders slumped.

"Do not feel so defeated," she told him softly. "If push comes to shove, just know that you have a way out, okay? And it's not drugs. Don't do drugs. They're expensive."

He laughed before clapping a hand to his mouth, looking embarrassed. She grinned at him. It was quite fetching to see him laugh, really.

"Walk me the rest of the way?" she proposed.

His eyes twinkled just the littlest bit. "That sounds reasonable," he returned, his smile wobbling as he tried, and failed, to keep it off his face.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"So, I came up with a compromise."

He grinned hugely at her, looking the happiest she had seen him ever since two months ago, when the incident where he was arrested happened. She walked down the front steps of the police station to him; halting two steps short, she planted herself atop one of the thick, low walls flanking the stairs and indicated for him to do the same.

Thus settled, she began, "Tell me."

"I went to look into that housing stuff after you told me to," he confessed. "And then I found this program that helps you pay rent on the condition that you appear to be working towards being able to afford the rent yourself. It's cheaper than sheltering a person or an entire family, they said, so they try to prevent eviction in the first place. Well, they told me they'd help me if I got a job which would be enough to pay my rent after the grant they gave me ran out—otherwise they'd just be postponing my homelessness, y'know—so I went looking. They sent this counsellor-person to help me with my résumé and all. And, guess what?"

She played along. "What?"

"I found a job!" His beam was dazzling. "It pays two dollars an hour more than I used to earn. It's still not a lot, but I can pay my rent, _and _I'm in job-training now. Things are looking awesome!"

She smiled, finding his bubbly enthusiasm infectious. "That's good, Tony! That's really good."

"Yeah?" He nearly looked like he wanted to clap his hands. "And it's thanks to you. I mean—"

"Oh, no." She shook her head. "This is all you, Tony—you just needed someone to believe in you."

He sobered a tiny bit. "Still, I have to thank you. You're probably the first person to pay attention to me in a long time. I wanna buy you coffee. Can I buy you coffee?"

She chuckled, standing and offering him her hand. "Let's go."

He clasped it and rose from his makeshift seat as well before he let go. "I'm sorry I haven't been by in so long, by the way," he added as they descended the steps. "I was just busy, trying to find a new job and stuff, and I didn't really wanna come here and have nothing of consequence to report."

"I would have enjoyed hearing about your job hunt, all the same."

He peered at her, curious and startled. "You would?"

"Yes, Tony. Believe it or not, I actually like talking to you." She chortled at the gobsmacked expression on his face. Playfully, she nudged him in the ribs. "I guess you will just have to update me—and _don't you dare _leave anything out."

His laughter was infectious.

xoxo

Months passed in that manner.

Tony would inevitably show up at lunchtime once every week, leaning against the walls bookending the front steps as he waited for her; and whenever he saw her, his face lit up anew in such a way that made her wonder if he was not _too _eager for their lunch dates. Getting to know Tony as a man full of life and stories was certainly more interesting than getting to know him as the petty criminal. At the back of her mind, Ziva did wonder if it was appropriate for her even to be friends with him at all, but she thought their friendship mattered too much to either of them to be sacrificed so arbitrarily. She would cross the ethical bridge if and when she came to it. Right then, Tony needed a companion—and as hard as it was for her to accept that she was practically his only friend and confidante, she knew it to be true—and so she would be his companion.

Five months into the Incident, he told her that he was eligible for a potentially early end to his probation. She treated him to lunch; that, as she predicted to herself, reduced him to fluster and hesitant refusal, but she caught him trying to hide his smile by staring at the table when she ordered them ice-cream. Another four months after that, it was official: Tony was off probation, and the previous charge for drug possession had been removed from his record. That day, he treated her to lunch, and even though she knew that it would put some strain on his wallet for a while, she didn't refuse. A person had their pride. Tony had definitely earned his.

Spring turned into the heat of summer, which in turn grew to welcome the chill of autumn. Before long, winter was around the corner. Ziva loaned Tony a particularly thick blanket of hers so that he could combat the lack of warmth in his apartment, but it still did not take more than a few weeks for him to turn up looking the worse for wear one day, with his hands stuffed into his coat pockets and his nose red at the very tip. She had laughed when she saw his appearance and promised to lend him several more blankets. Plain soup was had for lunch that day, but when Ziva came to discover that, due to a history of malnutrition and the lack of proper healthcare, Tony's flu periods tended to be longer and more arduous than the average person's, she began to ply him with warm foods. Still, it was only when spring announced its arrival that Tony could be seen once more in good spirits and with cheeks that were rosier than they had ever been before.

Time went on, and Ziva became increasingly aware that the line between 'police officer helping a lost young man' and 'very close friends' was blurring. It had, perhaps, been blurred back almost a year ago when she had first agreed to meet him outside of the case she had been working on, but it was more evident now, in the pleasure she gained from lunching with him and the care she took in ensuring that he wouldn't end up hospitalized from pneumonia during his flu period. She knew it was careless to get that involved with a random stranger, especially considering the circumstances under which they met, but Ziva found it hard to stay away. Tony was truly a good man. It wasn't hard to see that he was intelligent, and more than a year's worth of conversations with him had left her without a sliver of doubt that he was kind, as well. She thought that in another world, a world where Fate had a softer hand, he might even have been a heroic man—so came proof in the form of the little boy he had once risked his life for by scooping out of the way of an oncoming vehicle.

All too soon, though, things began to change. On an otherwise unremarkable spring morning, upon a sidewalk made glittery by the light rain that DC had been bestowed with earlier that day, Tony told Ziva the words she least expected to hear:

"There's this girl from my work; her name's Dierdra. I've been seeing her."


End file.
